CURRENT LITERATURE AND REVIEWS. 



Annual Report of the Commissioner of the Geiieral Land Office. 



Pp. I20. 



Much information of interest and value regarding the forest 

 re.serves is contained in this report. 



Complete lists of the forest reserves are given, together with 

 their areas, the state or territory in which the}' are situated, and 

 the per cent of its total area which they cover. 



The area* of sixty million acres comprised in the fifty-four 

 reserves is entirely in the region west of the 95th meridian ; it is 

 distributed through a great variety of conditions ; in climate, from 

 the excessive humidity of the Pacific slope to the aridity of the 

 southwestern deserts ; in timber, from the magnificent volume of 

 the firs and spruces of Washington to the dwarf cacti of Arizona. 

 These reserved areas should, both directly and indirectly, prove 

 of great value to the nation. 



The great step of making these reserves having been taken, 

 there must follow two greater ones : that of maintaining them and 

 that of properly utilizing them. 



The force of rangers employed in protecting the reserves varied 

 during the past year from 425 to 124. To expect such a force to 

 protect 60,000,000 acres is nothing less than hopeless. 



Concerning the utilization of the reserves, with little exaggera- 

 tion it may be said that the government receives no direct profit 

 from them ; only sixty-.six million feet, board measure, and sixty- 

 six thousand cords of wood having been sold, or in all less than 

 one-quarter the amount yearlj' taken from the Adirondack region. 

 On only one reserve, that of the Black Hills does an established sys- 

 tem of timber sales exist. Indirect profit ensues from the utiliza- 

 tion of the reserves for grazing ; yet the people as a whole should 

 not be expected to maintain, at their expense, grazing grounds for 

 the free use of a few. 



* Since the publication of this report the following additional reserves 

 have been created : 



St. Mary Forest Reserve, Montana 1,800,000 acres 



Chippewa Forest Reserve, Minnesota 200,000 acres 



Kootenai Forest Reserve, Montana-Idaho 1,276,000 acres 



